5 Simple Tricks to Improve Your PC Experience

PC gaming offers unrivalled flexibility, a myriad of customisation options and the de facto experience with the right setup and know-how. Yet it can also be complicated, finicky and inconvenient, which can hamper your overall enjoyment.

Thankfully, it doesn’t have to be this way. Here are five simple tricks to improve your PC experience, so you can spend more time gaming and less time complaining.

Kiss long load times goodbye

Waiting around for a game to load – or for your system to turn on – is a colossal pain no person should have to endure. Time is precious, time is money, time is finite. La

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ugh in the face of Father Time by switching out your dusty old hard drive disk (HDD) for a blazing fast solid state drive (SSD). An SSD can provide lightning quick boot speeds and also help your games run better. So, unless you’ve got time to spare (we highly doubt it), leave long load times where they belong: firmly in the past.

Optimise your games

With the right hardware, PC gaming can offer incredible levels of graphical fidelity. But for most of us, having a water-cooled rig with the latest graphics card and CPU simply isn’t an option. That’s where optimisation comes in. Proper optimisation can be the difference between a silky-smooth experience and an annoyingly janky one. Finding the perfect settings may seem like an overwhelming chore at first, but once you get to grips with the various sliders and weird terminology it’s totally worth it. Alternatively, if you can’t be bothered to have a fiddle underneath the hood, there are various programs such as Nvidia’s Geforce Experience which can optimise your games at a click of the button. Neato!

Ditch your desk for the big screen

Do you work and game at a desk? If so, we may have a problem. While it’s easy (and wholly encouraged) to make your gaming space as comfortable and luxurious as possible, couches and big screen TVs are universally adored for a reason. There’s something so pure, so cathartic, and unbelievably satisfying about slumping onto the sofa, whacking the big tele on, and playing your favourite games. The good news is that with Steam’s Big Picture mode, gaming on the idiot box has never been easier. Just hook your rig up to your TV and enjoy a console-like interface. Alternatively, you could always stream your PC games using the new Steam Link app, if you’re so inclined.

Grab a gamepad

Without getting into the endless debate about which input is better for gaming (they both have their pros and cons, alright?!), the humble gamepad shouldn’t be overlooked. Whether you choose to hook up the much beloved Xbox 360 pad or attempt to master Valve’s quirky Steam Controller, a gamepad just feels better for some games. A wide range of titles now feature native gamepad support, too, so there’s no harm in giving it a whirl. Don’t worry, the PC master race will forgive you… maybe.

Go wireless

Quit living in the past: it’s time to do away with the mess of cables that have a stranglehold on your desk (and probably your life). If you’re sick of having a mini tug of war with your mouse or keyboard, going wireless is your best bet. Gone are the days of debilitating input lag and spotty connection issues – say hello to imperceptible latency, incredible battery life and the liberating freedom that only zero wires can provide. Flick that mouse without a worry in CS: GO, move your keyboard to wherever you like, and laugh at all your hard-wired friends. The future is now.

Got any other tricks you’d like to share with your PC gaming brethren? Let us know in the comments below.

Adam Vjestica is a freelance writer who’s bonkers about video games and tech. A previous Nintendo of Europe employee, Adam’s arm was once touched by Satoru Shibata and he hasn’t washed it since. He also played Halo 5: Guardians for over 51 hours straight (leaving him eternally tired).